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A shift symmetry in the Higgs sector: experimental hints and stringy realizations

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Abstract

We interpret reported hints of a Standard Model Higgs boson at ~ 125 GeV in terms of high-scale supersymmetry breaking with a shift symmetry in the Higgs sector. More specifically, the Higgs mass range suggested by recent LHC data extrapolates, within the (non-supersymmetric) Standard Model, to a vanishing quartic Higgs coupling at a UV scale between 106 and 1018 GeV. Such a small value of λ can be understood in terms of models with high-scale SUSY breaking if the Kähler potential possesses a shift symmetry, i.e., if it depends on H u and H d only in the combination (\({H_u} + {\overline H_d}\)). This symmetry is known to arise rather naturally in certain heterotic compactifications. We suggest that such a structure of the Higgs Kähler potential is common in a wider class of string constructions, including intersecting D7- and D6-brane models and their extensions to F-theory or M- theory. The latest LHC data may thus be interpreted as hinting to a particular class of compactifications which possess this shift symmetry.

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  1. Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Heidelberg, Philosophenweg 19, D-69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Arthur Hebecker, Alexander K. Knochel & Timo Weigand

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  1. Arthur Hebecker
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  2. Alexander K. Knochel
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ArXiv ePrint: 1204.2551v2

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Hebecker, A., Knochel, A.K. & Weigand, T. A shift symmetry in the Higgs sector: experimental hints and stringy realizations. J. High Energ. Phys. 2012, 93 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP06(2012)093

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